


A Little Hope

by widowshulk



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Civil War (Marvel), F/M, Post-Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-09
Updated: 2015-09-09
Packaged: 2018-04-19 22:49:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4763894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/widowshulk/pseuds/widowshulk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the middle of the Avengers’ ‘civil war’, Natasha finds out that Bruce is being held by General Ross’s men and this changes everything. Will Natasha be able to break Bruce out on her own? Will Natasha and Team Tony be able to continue working with General Ross now? What’s happened to Bruce while he’s been gone?</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Little Hope

“Romanoff, what are you doing?! We need to go!” Tony yelled down the hallway to Natasha’s room. Usually she was the one dragging his ass out the door to these hearings, so a little bit of him was panicking that something might have happened to her.

Natasha threw her door open, her face as serious as he’d ever seen it. If Tony didn’t know better, he’d think she was actually upset about something. Today’s hearing with General Ross couldn’t be getting her down that much, surely? She was usually scarily cool under pressure, so he wasn’t sure how to handle her when she was anything else.

“I can’t. Not today. You’ll have to go without me,” Natasha replied, not looking him in the eyes. 

“Why?” Tony asked, trying not to sound too demanding, recognising that tough love probably wasn’t what she needed right now.

“It’s Bruce. Ross’s men have him,” she said, finally making eye contact. As she looked up at him, he noticed her eyes were red and puffy; had she been crying? Regardless, he knew better than to bring it up with her.

“How? He’s off the grid,” Tony said, his mind running a million miles an hour, trying to work out how Ross could have found Bruce when none of Fury’s people had had any luck.

“They’ve been working on a gamma tracker and perfected it a few weeks back. They brought him in Monday.”

“Show me,” Tony said, knowing that Natasha wouldn’t be telling him this if she didn’t have concrete proof.

Natasha marched past him to find the nearest piece of technology. As she expected, he wasn’t far from one of his tablets, of which he seemed to have a thousand. She logged into the Air Force’s database and tapped away for a few moments before she handed the tablet back to him with, her eyebrows raised in anticipation. Tony was looking at video surveillance of an isolated cell surrounded by at least four guards. In the corner of the cell was a man hugging his knees. His hair was grey and messy, his clothes were torn, and there was a puddle of blood not far from where he was sat. He was a lot skinnier than when Tony had last seen him, but there was no doubt that that was Bruce Banner. Tony felt his chest tighten and now he understood why Natasha had been crying. 

For a moment, he focused all his attention on regulating his breathing; now was not the time to be having another panic attack.

“When was this?” he finally asked as he put the tablet down.

“It’s live. I looked back through all the footage, but I can’t see what they’ve done to him. They escort him out of the cell and when he comes back he’s got fresh marks on him. It doesn’t take Bruce’s genius brain to know what’s going on.”

“Shit,” Tony said, trying his hardest not to picture Bruce being tortured by Ross’s goons.

“I traced the feed and I’ve got their location. Ross will be bringing some of his men to the hearing today, so there’ll be less security to take care of.”

“I’m coming with you,” Tony said.

“You can’t. If we’re both missing, Ross will know something’s up. I need to do this alone.”

“Right. You can handle it. Call Vision if you need backup,” Tony offered.

Natasha nodded and made her way to the weapons room to get ready. It didn’t take her long to get dressed and find all her weapons, it was second nature to her now, but as she did all she could think about was the last time she saw Bruce. The way their bodies had felt pressed together, the taste of his lips on hers, the way she had wanted to melt into him in that moment, then the look on his face as he went over the edge. That face had haunted her sleep, it was there in her weakest moments; it taunted her, reminding her of what she’d done to one of the sweetest men she’d ever known. 

“I’m taking one of the jets,” she called to Tony as she waited for the elevator.

“Don’t mess with my music,” he called back to her.

She laughed as she got into the elevator, trying to think of what music she could use to wind Tony up this time. Maybe some K-pop? She smiled to herself as she pictured his face as he realised what she’d done; priceless. 

It didn’t take her long to get the jet off the ground and as she flew, she started going over details for what to do when she got to Ross’s compound. She ran through a few ideas before she finally settled on a plan of attack. When she’d been on missions with Steve, there was always the risk that he was going to do something reckless and jeopardise the whole thing. She missed a lot of things about fighting alongside Steve, but that was not one of them. She shook her head and reminded herself not to think about that now, she had more important things to be thinking about than their ‘civil war’, as the media was calling it.

Natasha parked the jet a mile outside of the compound and as she was getting her weapons ready, she heard a jet pull up and park on her right flank. Ross’s men couldn’t have detected her, they didn’t have security at this point outside the fence, she’d checked. She braced herself and headed out with her guns at the ready. 

“I think we can put our disagreement on hold for this,” Clint said, his arms raised in surrender. It was a gesture of good faith more than anything else; Natasha could see at least five different weapons that he could reach in seconds.

“Why are you here?” she demanded, cocking her head, but keeping her gun pointed at him.

“Sharon. Turns out she’s been talking to Tony. We can deal with that later, but this is more important,” he said, nodding to the compound.

“You’re here to help with Bruce?” Natasha was stunned. They’d been fighting for so long now that it had felt like they’d never be friends again, like they’d never be able to get past what they’d done to each other.

“Yeah, I was his teammate, and his friend, too.”

Natasha lowered her gun and hugged her former comrade, glad for the chance to put their differences aside, even if it was fleeting. 

“So, what’s the plan?” Clint asked as he let Natasha go. 

She walked him through her plan and he made some minor adjustments as she talked; she enjoyed being reminded of what an excellent mind he had. 

“We don’t kill anyone in there,” Natasha said as they approached the fence of the compound. “Knock them out, sure, but don’t kill anyone. That’s not how Bruce would want this done.”

Clint nodded and started cutting through the fence. The fact that it wasn’t well-protected made Natasha uneasy; it should be a lot harder to break into a military compound of all places. He was through the fence in a couple of minutes and Natasha led the way around the building to the nearest door. Clint kept watch as she hacked her way into the system in a matter of seconds and, just like that, they were in. The first hallway they walked into was unguarded, but both of them kept their weapons up, knowing that it wouldn’t long now until Ross’s men became aware of the fact that their compound had been compromised. 

Clint shadowed Natasha as they made their way through endless hallways until they finally reached the room where Bruce was being held, right in the middle of the compound. They still hadn’t come across any guards and Natasha was getting more and more paranoid by the minute. What if they’d moved him since she’d left? What if the trace had been manufactured and this wasn’t where he was being held? What if this really was a set-up? All sorts of ‘what ifs’ plagued Natasha, but she didn’t have time for that, she needed to be on high alert. Now was not the sort of time for her to start doubting her abilities. 

They made it into the room and shots were fired at them within seconds. They got cover and took out the guards one by one. In less than five minutes, the room was clear and nobody was dead, just unconscious. Flawless execution, just like the old days with Clint. They both knew they didn’t have long before the guards woke or reinforcements got here, so they ran to Bruce’s cell. He was still sat in the corner where he’d been just half an hour earlier on Tony’s tablet.

“Hey, doc,” Natasha said gently as Clint found the keys to unlock the cell.

Bruce’s head lifted slowly and Natasha couldn’t help but gasp as she saw the bruises and cuts on his face. It looked like he’d gone a few rounds with Hulk from the sheer quantity of marks on him. Natasha slid her weapons back into place and got right up close to the glass wall, still not really believing that she’d finally found him. 

“What have they done to you?” she asked as she tried to catch her breath. 

Bruce looked at her, confused, as if he couldn’t understand what he was seeing. 

“I’m in,” Clint said as the door slid open, taking a step back to allow Natasha in.

She jogged in, and stopped in front on Bruce, who was still hugging his knees. 

“Bruce? It’s me, Natasha. I’m here to get you out,” she said gently, lowering herself to her knees to be able to properly look him in the eye. 

Now that she was close to him, she could see the finer cuts and bruises on his arms as well, and it took all of her strength not to reach out and stroke his arms or brush his hair out of his face. Considering that he’d been here for a few days, she knew he’d flinch if she did touch him, so she needed to wait until he was ready, but it was hard to do when he looked for forlorn. He was also blinking hard and fast; it looked as if he were trying to make sure that he wasn’t in a dream.

“Is that really you?” Bruce asked quietly, slowly moving his right arm towards her, letting her knew that it was okay to touch him.

“It is, it’s really me,” she said, taking his hand into her own. “Wanna get out of here?”

“More than anything,” he replied as he tried to stand. He was weak from whatever they’d done to him and he buckled under his own weight.

“A little help here,” Natasha called to Clint.

They took a side each and eased Bruce up, draping his arms around their shoulders to be able to carry him. The three of them slowly walked out of the cell and with each step Bruce seemed to regain more and more strength. 

“Nat, there’s gonna be an army out there. We can’t carry him out,” Clint said, looking at Natasha behind Bruce’s head.

“What about the big guy? Can you still-?” Natasha asked Bruce, not needing to finish the question.

“Yeah, I can,” Bruce said, shaking himself free of their arms. “You might wanna stand back.”

Clint looked at Natasha, searching for reassurance. She nodded, knowing this was their best bet at getting out of here alive. Secretly she was desperately hoping that the lullaby would still work later, but they’d worry about that then. For now, they just needed to get out of here.

They both took a few steps back and waited. It wasn’t long before Bruce’s body started to quiver and turn green. Natasha couldn’t take her eyes off the transformation. It had been a long time since she’d seen his skin tremble like this, since she’d watched the green tinge spread all over his body; it was as awe-inspiring as she remembered it to be and she was glad she was able to see it again. She’d worked with Hulk and he was as much her teammate as Bruce, so it was nice to have him back as well. Hulk looked back at her and snarled with a slight head tilt toward the door. She nodded and pulled her weapons out as Clint got his bow ready.

Hulk ran to the door, wrenching it towards him and pulling it off the hinges. Before Natasha and Clint were even out of the room, he was out of sight; he’d charged down the hallway, knocking over countless people, but not enough. Natasha and Clint fell into formation within seconds. After all those years of working together it was like falling back into an old routine. She’d forgotten how good it was to fight by his side and not against him. It didn’t take them long to fight their way out, especially with the added help from Hulk running people down. 

As they ran back to their jets, there was no sign of Hulk and no indication of where he might have gone. Natasha knew there’d be more people chasing after them soon, so she figured she’d get back to the jet and see if she could spot him from above. 

They made it to the jets unharmed, but they knew there could be people after them any minute.

“Thanks for your help,” Natasha said, giving Clint a quick hug.

“Hope you find him in one piece,” he replied, walking back to his jet. “Wait, Nat?” 

“What?”

“Our old safehouse. Tonight, 10pm. Bring your team.”

“That doesn’t sound like a good idea.”

“Trust me? We were friends once.”

“Okay,” she said with a smile.

She watched Clint get into his jet and then headed on to her own. The back hatch was open, and she knew she hadn’t left it like that; she hadn’t needed to open it. She pulled her gun back out and walked steadily into the jet.

“Woah, it’s only me,” Bruce said with his sheepish grin.

He looked healed, all his bruises and cuts were gone and he didn’t have his usual post-Hulk sweat. He was wrapped in a blanket he must have found in the jet and it felt like the old days for a brief moment. Then, it hit Natasha, this was Bruce in front of her.

“You’re you!” she said, unable to contain her surprise as she slotted her gun back into place.

“Yeah, it’s a long story. Let’s get out of here and I’ll tell you on the way.”

Natasha agreed and they were in the air less than a minute later. Bruce explained that Ross’s men had some sort of antidote that transformed Hulk back to Bruce, which is why he had to charge away instead of helping her and Clint fight. Now it made a little more sense how Ross had manage to capture him. Bruce then went on to tell her that since he left, he’d been on a deserted island, training himself and Hulk to accept one another. If he let Hulk out every now and again, he became less reckless and Bruce had more control over him. It had been a difficult process, Bruce explained, but the pay-off had been worth it. He hadn’t contacted any of the team because he knew they’d want to help and this was something he needed to do alone. He’d also done some medical work a few islands over in exchange for newspapers and food, so he’d been keeping up to date with the ‘civil war’. 

“You are Clint are on different teams, why was he helping you today?” Bruce asked once they’d finally finished talking about Bruce.

“Honestly, I don’t know. He said something about saving you being more important than our fight, but there’s got to be more to it than that,” she replied.

“Because I’m not that important?” Bruce teased.

Natasha couldn’t stop herself from grinning. So much had happened to both of them since they’d last seen each other and yet it felt so natural to be around him. She was completely at ease around him, which she had absolutely not expected. It seemed like he was completely at ease, too, although that could be down to his island healing.

She rolled her eyes at him and laughed.

“How are you healed? Was it the big guy?” Natasha asked.

“I think so. I was in bad shape, huh?”

“Yeah, it wasn’t pretty.”

“Thanks,” Bruce said with a laugh. “Seriously, though, thank you for getting me out of there.”

“I wouldn’t let you stay in there a minute longer, you’re an Avenger.”

They shared a smile.

Natasha pulled the jet into the flight deck of Avengers Tower and Bruce said, “It’s good to be back here.”

“After the team split, we moved back here and let Steve keep the new facility. It’s good to have you back, anyway.”

Bruce walked slowly into the tower, taking it all, remembering what it had been like when he was here, when he was part of a team. As he got closer, memories came flooding back; some of them were bad, but most of them were great. The best times of his life had almost all been in this building and he started to feel guilty for not letting his friends know that he was okay.

“Don’t do that to yourself,” Natasha said, watching him closely.

“Don’t do what?” Bruce asked, wondering if she’d somehow picked up another super power.

“You were about to feel bad for not keeping in touch. Don’t. You put yourself first, and you needed to. It would have been nice to know that you were safe, sure, but if you were in danger, we knew you’d reach out. You did so much for all of us and we don’t blame you for leaving,” Natasha said with her hand on his arm.

“Thanks,” he said with a smile.

Once they were inside, Bruce was bombarded by at least a hundred questions from Tony about where he’d been and what he’d been doing and had he seen who won the Nobel Prize for physics this year? Natasha glared at him, shutting him up with a single look, and Tony got the message right away. They went through to the kitchen to get some tea and Bruce repeated his story to Tony, who also reassured Bruce that he’d done the right thing by leaving. 

“So, Stark. How long have you and Agent 13 been in touch?” Natasha demanded once the conversation had lulled.

“She’s interested in our side of the story,” Tony said, not even making the effort to pretend to be shocked.

“Have you been feeding them information?” she asked.

“What good would that do me?” Tony asked, exasperated.

“This conversation isn’t over, but thanks for calling me backup, Clint was useful,” Natasha said, forcing a smile.

Tony nodded.

“He wants us, all of us, to meet them tonight. Secure location. No one else.”

“To kill us?” Tony asked with a laugh.

Natasha raised her eyebrows at him and his laughing stopped immediately.

“This situation with Bruce, it’s not good. Ross took one of our own and he’s on our side. Maybe we should give them a chance,” Natasha offered. 

“You can make your own arrangement, weigh up both sides. No winners, no losers, just compromises,” Bruce offered.

“We’ll ask our guys. We do this right, decide as a group,” Tony said, before pulling out his phone to summon the rest of their team. 

“You know my vote,” Natasha said to Tony before turning to Bruce. “We’ve still got all your stuff in your room if you want some clothes instead of that blanket.”

Bruce laughed. “I’d forgotten I was wearing it. Clothes would be nice.” 

The two of them headed off in the direction of his old room.

“I’m surprised you and Clint are on different sides,” Bruce said.

“This is bigger than friendship. This is war,” Natasha replied, laughing after ‘war’. “He has his ideals and I have mine, he wants freedom and I want protection. There just doesn’t seem to be a way to have both.”

“You’ll come up with something.”

“Now we’ve seen what Ross is capable of, we can’t keep working with him. We need to find something that works without him.”

Bruce nodded in agreement, not sure anything he could say would really help Natasha feel better.

They’d reached Bruce’s room and he ducked in, hit with a wave of nostalgia. The bed was still a ruffled mess, so clearly no one had been in here since he’d gone.

“I didn’t want people going through your stuff, so I told everyone I’d break their arms if they set foot in here,” Natasha said from the doorway. 

Bruce laughed. “That doesn’t surprise me.”

“I’ll leave you to it,” Natasha said, turning to leave.

“Wait there. Let me just throw some clothes on.”

“I’ll be out here,” Natasha said, easing the door shut to give him some privacy.

Bruce was out in the hallway a couple of minutes later and Natasha was pleased to see that he was wearing her favourite purple shirt. She’d always told him that purple suited him, and a small part of her hoped that he’d remembered that and chosen the shirt for her.

“About before, in Sokovia?” Bruce asked, fiddling his hands and watching them intently. “I don’t blame you. I shouldn’t have asked you to leave before the fight was done, I know that. I do have one regret, though.” 

Natasha stepped a little closer to him, but made sure to leave a little space between them. “What’s that?”

“Our first kiss. I imagined it going a little differently,” Bruce said, taking a step closer to her and filling the space between them.

“You imagined it?” Natasha asked, her voice low and husky.

“Of course. After a nice meal, we’d share a bottle of wine and watch the stars. I’d tuck your hair behind your ear and tell you how beautiful you are,” Bruce started, his face flushed. “I’d slowly put my forehead on yours and I’d gently press my lips to yours. Just for a second. Then I’d pull away to see your response. Then I’d place my hand on your lower back and…”

“Doc,” Natasha interrupted, her voice verging on breaking. “If you don’t kiss me now, we’re going to have a problem.”

Bruce smiled as he tucked her hair behind her right ear. Then he slowly lowered his forehead to hers and gently placed his lips on her. As his lips touched hers, Natasha ran her hands through Bruce’s hair, pulling his face close to hers and keeping it there, not letting him pull back from her. She kissed him back, hard. His lips responded, pressing deeply against hers. 

When their lips finally parted, they were both gasping for air, but they couldn’t let go of one another. Their arms were wrapped around each other and they started to laugh. Their bodies heaved with laughter and they fell against each other. There was no way of knowing how long they’d been laughing like that, but it felt like it could have been hours before they finally stopped. They kissed again when they’d stopped laughing; gently and quickly, it was almost casual, but it was far from meaningless.

“We should get back. Tony will think I’ve knocked you out or something,” Natasha said with a small laugh.

“You’re right,” Bruce said, sighing.

They let each other go, and then Natasha reached her hand out to take Bruce’s. She felt like a teenage girl, all flustered and giggly, but their hands fit together perfectly. His hands were so warm, a fitting contrast to her eternally cold skin. Just another thing about Bruce that complimented her, she thought to herself.

When they got close to the living room, they could hear people talking, so Natasha dropped his hand. 

“We can explain this later,” Natasha suggested, pointing between the two of them.

“Good idea,” Bruce said. “We’ve got enough to worry about.”

He leant down and gave her a quick kiss on the cheek before he headed into the living room to be greeted by the very surprised faces of Rhodey and Vision. Tony clearly hadn’t told the others that he was here, which meant Bruce was going to have to tell his story yet again.

“Yeah, yeah, the doc is back. It’s all part of why we have to meet the others later,” Natasha said as she walked in behind him.

“General Ross took him captive and tortured him. We can’t work with a guy like that,” Tony said.

“Clint helped me break Bruce out,” Natasha explained. “He reached out and I think we should take it. The government’s not doing us any good and we can’t trust them. He asked me to trust him and I do. We can come to some sort of arrangement.”

“After all they’ve done?” Rhodey asked, outraged.

“We’ve done just as much and they’re willing to work with us,” Natasha said.

“I think you are right, Miss Romanoff. Our progress has been limited by General Ross and this new information means that we cannot trust him. We should try and come to an agreement with the others,” Vision said.

“What do you think?” Rhodey asked Tony.

“I don’t know if we can trust them, but what choice do we have?” he said with exasperation.

“Looks like I’m outnumbered, even without T’Challa here,” Rhodey said.

“You don’t have to come with us,” Natasha said.

“Like hell am I gonna miss it,” Rhodey replied.

“We’ve got a few hours before we have to go, so we’re gonna get food,” Natasha said, pointing to Bruce.

“It was good to see you both again,” Bruce said to Rhodey and Vision with a smile before following Natasha out of the living room. Natasha had rushed them out of there so fast Bruce didn’t have a chance to invite any of the others along, which he assumed was the point.

They headed to a diner not far from the tower, an old favourite of theirs. Natasha ordered for both of them, making sure Bruce got a lot of food to help him get his strength up after being held captive plus the Hulk out.

Natasha asked him about his training of Hulk and Bruce, knowing that Natasha would settle for nothing less, gave her the most detailed accounts he could manage of his time with Hulk on the island. Then when their food came, the conversation lulled as they both dug in; Bruce practically inhaled his meal, while Natasha looked on with amusement, her signature smirk never far from her lips. 

“What about you?” Bruce asked when he was finally done eating. “How were things here?”

“While you were gone?” she asked, to which Bruce nodded. “Ordinary. Training the new team, fighting off global threats, the usual. Then, the Registration thing got out of control and we split. You know the rest.”

“I know that stuff, but, um, no boyfriends or anything?” he asked, concentrating very hard on the empty plate in front of him.

Natasha grinned. “Didn’t meet anyone dorky enough.”

Bruce raised his face to look at her and smiled at her grin; her smile was incredibly infectious, but he loved this playful side of her. When she teased him like this it was easy to forget that she could kill him with one finger. 

“Ice cream sundae before we head back?” she asked.

“Sure, want to split one?” he asked. 

They split a strawberry sundae and Natasha caught Bruce up on what the team had been up to while he was gone; he didn’t realise just how much he’d missed out on and that familiar tinge of sadness echoed through him. 

They made it back to the tower with plenty of time to spare, but Tony wasn’t happy about how long they’d been gone.

“Wheels up in thirty minutes,” he said as soon as they got off the elevator. He turned to Natasha and nodded. “Suit up.”

“Banner, while we’re gone you can play in the lab, see all the new toys we’ve got up there,” Tony said as Natasha headed to the weapons room.

“I’m coming with you,” Bruce said, not doing a very good job at hiding his outrage.

“Like hell you are.”

“I’m as much a part of this as all of you. If you don’t take me with you, the big guy will follow you there anyway.”

“Fine, but I’m not happy about it.”

With that, Tony walked away, presumably to suit up himself. 

Since he didn’t need to suit up, Bruce went to his old room and found one of his favourite sweaters to put on, suddenly feeling very helpless compared to the fighters everywhere around him. He sat on his old bed and wondered how tonight was going to go. He’d seen the two sides at each other’s throats in the newspapers, but he couldn’t imagine what it would be like to actually see it in person. Through all the years of them being on the same side, they’d had all sorts of disagreements, but they’d always found a way to resolve them. There was this feeling in the pit of his stomach, a fear that he hadn’t felt in years. Being away from all this on his island, he’d had very little to fear, but now being back, all his old fears were reminding him of the reason he’d left in the first place and he had to wonder if he maybe ought to leave again.

“If you leave now, I’ll track you down and kill you myself,” Natasha teased from his doorway.

“How do you do that?” Bruce asked, standing to face her.

“Creep up on you or know what you’re thinking?” she asked, entering the room.

“Both.”

“I’ll never tell.”

“Should have guessed.”

“We need to be getting onto the jet right about now. You sure you still wanna come with?”

“I need to.”

“All right, but this isn’t going to be much fun for your first night back.”

“I’ve had worse nights,” Bruce said with a small smile. 

“Before we go, I just wanted to do this,” Natasha said, placing her hands gently on either side of his face and kissing him gently. He smiled as he moved his lips with hers. It was a less desperate kiss than their earlier one, but it was no less wonderful for either of them.

They headed out to join the others at the jet and as they boarded, Natasha squeezed Bruce’s arm and whispered, “We’re going to be fine.”

He wasn’t sure how much he believed those words, but hearing them from her gave them more of an impact, and for a moment he had a little hope.


End file.
